


Decorum

by thedevilchicken



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clothed Sex, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Established Relationship, F/M, Padmé Amidala Lives, Politics, Rebel Leader Padmé Amidala
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26365516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Padmé lives. The Rebellion rises. And, every now and then, she meets an old friend who knows all of her secrets.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48
Collections: We die afen and afen





	Decorum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts).



"You know, this isn't strictly appropriate," Obi-Wan says. 

He's right, of course. He is, she finds, right with a near-infuriating frequency, even now the Republic has fallen and the Jedi are all gone. _Almost all_ , she tells herself, because he's not gone - he just can't be seen with her in public, or seen in public very much at all. The Emperor knows he's alive, and they both know he wants him dead. 

It's not strictly appropriate for a number of reasons. Firstly, because she's serving in the Imperial Senate now, not because she believes in it but because part of what she's learned in all her years in politics - part that she wasn't taught with the junior legislature - is you really should keep your enemies close. And, make no mistake, Sheev Palpatine is the enemy of everything she's ever hoped to stand for. 

She's an Imperial senator and sneaking away from the party with an enemy of the state wouldn't do very much at all for her reputation. More accurately, she supposes it would do something _to_ her reputation: Palpatine already suspects her loyalties aren't with him and consorting with a Jedi would likely seal her fate. She perhaps wouldn't be heartbroken to leave Coruscant, and leave behind the way he looks at her as if at any moment she might find a knife lodged in her back. He'd call it a tragedy, she thinks, and he'd make the galaxy mourn her, have her body lie in state inside the Imperial palace he's made of what was once the Jedi Temple and everyone who needed to would know: this is what happens to traitors. The messages he sends aren't subtle, after all, if you know where to look. 

But Obi-Wan is wearing a mask tonight, at the party on Naboo for the new queen's coronation. The Emperor - sometimes she thinks the word might choke her, but she's practiced very hard to say it with a smile - was engaged with the senate but Senator Amidala could be spared. On the ship, the sleek Naboo cruiser she keeps docked near to her apartment, she laughed and shook her head at the image of him in the ship's holographic comms. "Of course I can be spared," she said. "The senate can say _yes, sir_ just as easily without me." Obi-Wan just smiled tightly in response, because he didn't disagree. 

The new queen has been crowned now, and Padmé watched with a surge of nostalgia welling in her chest. Then the party began, and they all put on their masks as the music started and the other guests swept up the stairs into the ballroom. She knew some of them even with their full-face masks and elaborate costumes, from the way they spoke or stood or walked; Obi-Wan Kenobi she would have known anywhere, more than any of them, even in his deep red robes, black mask, and hood that mostly covered up his hair. He moves like a Jedi even now, like he's ready for anything, though she supposes the Purge proved how inaccurate that was. She knew his lightsaber would be clipped to his belt underneath his heavy robe, because he won't go anywhere without it, and she could make out the shift in the fabric lying over it if she narrowed her eyes just so. And, every now and then, she turned and caught him looking. Even when she didn't turn, she could feel his eyes on her and understood. 

She danced. There were councillors and assorted politicians eager to bend her ear for the length of a dance, and she knew she had to play her part though they all know the senate has become Sheev Palpatine's toy. She danced with businessmen and a man from the Imperial Navy complete with his repulsive uniform, grateful that she didn't have to smile under her mask as they made semi-polite small talk. And then, just minutes ago, she felt a hand around her wrist and turned quickly to face Obi-Wan. He didn't say a word; they just parted again, inconspicuously, and left the room - separately, though very much together. 

She still knows the palace corridors almost as well as she knows her own apartment back on Coruscant; once upon a time, not so very long ago in the scheme of things, she could have found her way from her chambers to the throne room to the palace's grand front doors with a blindfold tied over her eyes, and all she has tonight is this mask that doesn't stop her seeing. She swept away from the ballroom, pausing here and there to shake a hand or two and exchange pleasantries, but never actually stopping, until there were no more guests to pause with. She swept out into the gardens, into the cool night air beneath the shining stars that never look quite so familiar as they do from Theed. And there, Obi-Wan was waiting.

"You know, this isn't strictly appropriate," Obi-Wan says, and she really can't say she believes he's wrong. But so many things these days are inappropriate, which is a fact of daily life she can't escape. It's inappropriate that Palpatine ever seized control and turned Republic into Empire. It's inappropriate that the Galactic Senate has been retooled into a chamber full of people worried that the next disappearance will be theirs. It's inappropriate that she and her friends have formed a secret underground alliance, too, but she can't find it in her to regret it. They had to do something, after all, even if it feels like much too little too late. 

"It's been a long time since you cared about propriety," she tells him in reply.

He takes off his mask. He looks older now than when they first met, and looks older now than when Palpatine declared the Empire, but the way that his mouth's corners twist into a wry, familiar smile makes him look almost boyish. She lets him take her mask off, too, and set it on the bench nearby. 

They meet infrequently, because it's just not safe to do so except each few months, a few days here and there. He and Bail Organa have established a small number of rebel bases with the credits she discreetly finds, and they meet there, usually, at one base or another, while she's en route to some empty diplomatic soirée. There's not often much to say when they're alone together, once they've argued politics and strategy with the rebellion's other leaders, and every other thing that comes to mind. They know each other so well now. They know all each other's secrets. 

He takes her hand and presses his mouth to the palm of it. His beard tickles softly at her skin; she shivers, and that's a secret of hers that Obi-Wan knows. 

He presses his mouth to the side of her neck, just below her ear. One hand cups her jaw; one thumb brushes her cheek; she sighs as her eyes close and her head drops back, and that's another secret. 

Her dress was not designed for ease of removal, but that doesn't seem to matter. He hitches up her skirt and lets his fingertips graze her from mid-calf up to thigh. When she pulls him close, his cheeks are pink even in the light of a crescent moon, and the way he gasps and says her name...it's a secret they'll both keep. 

They won't leave together after and she knows that even now - not because it's not appropriate, but because it's just not time. She doesn't doubt, however, that one day that time will come. 

They won't leave together. So she'll make the best of being there with him right now.


End file.
